


Course Correction

by spudking



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/F, Titus can eat a bag of dicks, from where the canon went to hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 07:31:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6557401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spudking/pseuds/spudking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because denial is a powerful thing, and because this idea wouldn't leave me alone. The only way I can make sense of the character derailment and plotholes from season 3, while conveniently NOT killing off the favourite couples on the show.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Course Correction

Clarke wasn’t sure how she’d got here. Or where ‘here’ was. She couldn’t seem to bring the events of the last few days to mind, her brain was full of dull fog. What had they done to her? Who even was ‘they’? She could hear the voices around her, above her, but they sounded like they were underwater. And why was it so _floating hot?!_ She tried to open her eyes but the room was spinning, out of focus and she couldn’t keep them open long. Sometimes faces loomed over her, blurry, indistinct. She needed to get away, that much was clear. She needed to run. Which would have been easier to do if she could even sit up. Her back burned, screamed when she tried to move her left arm. She must have been hurt when they took her, somehow. She wasn’t about to let them do any worse to her.

Clarke had no idea how much time had passed when it came time to make her move. She waited for silence, and forced herself upright with her good arm. So far, so good. She shuffled agonisingly slowly towards the edge of the bed, swinging her legs down. Ok. _And...stand..._ She made it all of three steps before her legs buckled beneath her. Something tore at her arm as she fell, and the crash alerted her captors. She could hear the running feet, the shouting growing close.  
_“...one floating minute, we turned our back for one floating minute!”_  
Wait. Float? The hands on her were gentle, not rough.  
“Can you get her legs?”  
“I’m not that floating delicate, O.”  
“Just asking. Easy now. Damn it, princess, it’s ok,”  
She couldn’t count the arms under her as she was lifted and laid back down on the bed.  
“Floating hell, she tore the line,” one announced, pressing hard on the sore spot on her arm. “Get the doc, will you?”  
Something damp dabbed at her burning forehead.  
“What were you thinking, Griffin?”  
Griffin? Why would grounders use that name, they wouldn’t even know it. Clarke forced her eyes open, trying to focus.  
“Well hey there, dumbass,” came a cheery voice. A familiar voice, but she couldn’t place it. “It’s ok, Clarke. You’re safe. We’ve got you.”  
Clarke tried to remember the last time those statements hadn’t been mutually exclusive. Before...before... _no_.  She shut her eyes tight, trying to hold back tears. She couldn’t even think about it. About her.  
“Shit, Clarke, it’s ok.”  
The cold cloth moved to her cheeks. Clarke could feel herself falling back asleep, even as the footsteps returned. She gave up fighting it.

The next time she woke she felt a bit less like she was being cooked alive, a bit less shit. Enough to work out that she had been brought to what had so briefly been her room in Polis. _Ontari. The chip..._ She tried to sit up a bit and felt the stab of pain in her shoulder blade again. _Floating hell..._  
“Well look who’s awake.” Came a cheery voice. Clarke turned, and blinked. The figure didn’t change.  
“Mum? What...how...”  
“Easy does it,” Abby smiled, as Clarke’s brain ground to a halt. “You had us worried for a while there, Clarke.”  
Nothing was making much sense so Clarke went with; “I did?”  
“Oh yes. Honestly, Clarke, did you not think about at least putting a bandage on it?”  
Clarke stared in incomprehension.  
“That giant hole in your back?” Abby prompted. “Looks like you got mauled by something.”  
The memory of the panther from what felt like a lifetime ago stirred in Clarke’s mind. She’d got it cleaned out, hadn’t she? Niylah had... _oops._ Abby saw the flash of guilt. “Yes. That one. It was a complete infected mess. But...” Abby reached out, feeling Clarke’s forehead. “Yes. Looks like you’re fever’s finally broken. Welcome back to the land of the living.”  
“Good to be back. Wait...” Clarke frowned. “I remember things, but...the blockade, how...”  
Abby looked at her blankly.  
“What blockade?”

“L...” The name caught in Clarke’s throat. She swallowed. “They put a blockade. Around Arkadia. Because of Pike...” Clarke trailed off. Abby was shaking her head.  
“There’s no blockade. I think you’re a little confused, sweetheart.”  
“No, there...I...”  
“Clarke.” Abby took Clarke’s good hand. “Listen to me, ok? You’ve been having some pretty vivid dreams for the last few days. Nightmares, really. But that’s all it was. Do you remember...” Abby cast her mind back to before the riders had come for her. “Roan, and the Ice Queen? The duel between Roan and the Commander?”  
Clarke nodded slowly. She remembered. She remembered Aden’s promise, and the feel of Lexa’s hand in her own. She felt the lump rising in her throat.  
“Well the next morning the Commander found you unconscious. She sent messengers to Arkadia to fetch me.”  
Clarke’s stomach lurched.  
“The Com...Lexa did that?”  
Abby nodded. “I wanted to bring you home,” She admitted. “But by then you were too sick to move. She’s been very accommodating...Clarke? Clarke, are you ok?”  
Clarke’s head was spinning. Her ears were full of static, drowning out her mother’s questions.  
“Lexa’s alive?” She managed. Abby nodded.   _She’s alive. She’s not dead. She’s not...Titus didn’t..._ “Lexa’s alive,” Clarke repeated, like a prayer. The words made her lightheaded. Or...nope, she was definitely blacking out.  

“This is getting old, Griffin.”  
“Float me, it’s good to see you, Raven.”  
The mechanic grinned, her feet up on Clarke’s bed.  
“Of course it is, I’m fantastic. Still, this is the _fourth_ time I’ve had to wait around for your comatose ass, be it ever so nice.”  
Clarke struggled up against her pillows, managing not to jolt her panther wound this time. Her left arm was in a sling now, keeping the strain off. There was an IV line in her other arm, a thick bandage where it had been yanked out in her ill-fated getaway.  
 “Least I’m not bleeding from the eyes this time,” Clarke offered, and Raven nodded. She looked tired, and her leg was clearly paining her from the way she kept kneading it but it was Raven, through and through, without some sociopathic, jumped-up digital paperclip assistant using her as a meat puppet. Clarke didn’t even know where to start unpicking that.  
“Still,” Raven continued, oblivious to Clarke’s inner thoughts, “I saw that mess in your back. Trust me, it wasn’t much better.” Raven gave a shudder Clarke had to hope was exaggerated.  
“Raven...” Clarke hesitated, then went for it. “Look, I’m a little fuzzy on some current events.”  
“Understandable. You’ve been screaming nonsense for the last few days.”  
“...I have?”  
“Yeah,” Raven’s smile faltered. “It was, well, it was pretty awful to be honest. Scared the hell out of us. Thought you’d lost it completely but Octavia realised you’d switched into Trigedslang halfway through.”  
“Someone say my name?...oh, someone woke sleeping beauty!”  
Octavia leaned across the bed to gave Clarke as tight a hug as her injury allowed.  
“We’re playing ‘sort the fact from the fever-nightmare,” Raven told her. “Come join.”

In no short order Clarke found that, no, Pike was _not_ chancellor _“are you floating serious? You don’t get to stay on the ballot after staging an armed insurrection!”_ , Bellamy _hadn’t_ become a total douchecanoe although he’d been temporarily removed from active duty as a guard for his part in handing Pike’s party weapons and wouldn’t be welcome in Polis any time soon, Jaha was missing and presumed eaten by a giant gorilla, and Lincoln...  
“So that’s what that was about,” Raven murmured, sneaking a glance sideways at Octavia, who looked visibly shaken at the thought.  
“No. He’s ok. We’re still trying to get the kill order lifted; our ambassador has _really_ been laying down on the job recently, but he’s good. He’s alive.”  
Clarke let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.  
“That was one fucked-up little universe your brain cooked up, you know that?” Octavia added, and Clarke had to agree. Hesitantly Clarke brought up the subject of Lexa, and she couldn’t miss the look the two exchanged.  
“What?” She demanded, trying not to go red.  
“You said her name. A lot.” Raven said, in a tone that was a little too neutral. Clarke went for the half truth.  
“I saw her die. Or, I thought I did. Because of me. And then everything...” she waved her good hand, “happened.” she finished lamely. Neither of her companions seemed to entirely buy the story but they didn’t push it.  
“She’s up at the Ice Nation border doing some...heda-ing. I think she’s supposed to be back in a few days.”

A few days was simultaneously entirely too long and nowhere near enough time. What the hell was she going to do? Even with the fever gone Clarke still woke up sweating, remembering the black blood soaking into her hands. Could she risk it? Risk going through that again, feeling that again? Drag Lexa into the crosshairs out of her own selfishness? Real Titus probably didn’t have Murphy locked up somewhere. Real Titus probably wouldn’t commit hedacide in a fit of rage but there had been enough said in the real world to give her pause. What in the floating hell was she going to do?

Clarke didn’t plan the ambush. She hadn’t thought Lexa was getting back until the next day. They’d just been having dinner and there she was, striding in with Indra and Aden at her heels, every inch the Commander. Until she saw Clarke. The Commander stopped so suddenly Aden nearly walked into her.  
“Clarke.”  
The word was almost whispered. Clarke rose slowly.  
“You are recovered?” Lexa asked, with a little more of her usual composure. Clarke nodded, drawing nearer without any conscious decision to. She couldn’t help but look for blood but there was none she was whole, she was alive. “That is very good news indeed. You came very close to passing. We were all very concerned. ”  
They stood there, not knowing what to say, not knowing where to look. Clarke took a step towards her. _You can’t go through that again. You can’t feel like that again, it’s too much, it’s too painful._  
“Lexa...”  
How had they got this close? Clarke swallowed hard. Lexa tried for Commander style detachment.  
“I am sure we will have much to...”  
“ _Shop op_ , Lexa.” Clarke told her, and in a move that would have got others disembowled she reached out clumsily with her good hand, grabbed a fistful of Lexa’s short and pulled her forward into a kiss. Five jaws dropped.

When they broke apart Lexa was looking at her in wonder. Abby cleared her throat, probably about to try excuse Clarke’s actions, but Raven got a hand over her mouth first. Aden looked like Christmas had come early.  
“I thought you needed time?” Lexa asked quietly, trying to keep her hopes in check but Clarke could see it burning in her eyes. She shook her head.  
“No more time. No more waiting. I’ve wasted too much time already.”  
Lexa’s hand came up to cup her cheek.  
“You wasted nothing.” She told Clarke firmly. “You took the time you needed. But I am glad that I can now do _this_ ,” And the Commander of the Thirteen Clans kissed her back, free hand moving to Clarke’s waist to hold her closer. When they broke apart at last, breathing hard, both were smiling, beaming. Lexa’s fingers traced down Clarke’s cheek and jaw, hand settling on her shoulder.  
“I thought you were going to die,” she admitted, a tremble in her voice. The watchers were hardly daring to breathe lest they remind the pair that they were not in fact alone.  
“Ai don ge fis op,”* Clarke told her, enjoying the way Lexa looked at her when she spoke her language.  She wiggled her fingers. “A little sore. Nothing that will not heal.”  
“When I came to you. You screamed my name. I thought...”  
“I thought I saw you die. I couldn’t bear to lose you.”  
Lexa pulled Clarke in tight against her.  
“You won’t. I have sworn it, have I not?”  
Clarke nodded into her shoulder. Lexa seemed to hesitate. She leaned back, looking Clarke in the eye.  
“Clarke...this death of mine...is this why you kept insisting,” Lexa frowned, trying to remember the unfamiliar phrase, “that Titus should ‘eat an entire bag of dicks’?”  
The Skaikru tried to keep their composure. Raven failed first. Lexa just looked from them to Clarke, perplexed. “Where does one even acquire such a thing?” She asked, and the howls of laughter only doubled. “Who provides them? Is there a standard size of bag...Clarke, stop laughing. Clarke, I am trying to understand here!”

It was late that night when Lexa slipped into Clarke’s bed beside her, wrapping her arms around her.  
“Is this ok?”  
Clarke just made a noise of content in response, her fingers linking with Lexa’s. She tried to stifle a yawn and Lexa pressed a kiss to her uninjured shoulder.  
“Rid, Clarke. Ai na spun yu in.”**  
“You’ll be here when I wake up?”  
“Feva, Clarke.*** As long as you will have me.”  
“I like the sound of that. I like the sound of that a lot.”

  Clarke’s breathing had been growing slow and even when Lexa spoke again.  
“Clarke?”  
“Hmm?”  
“What exactly _is_ a bag of dicks?”  


 

*I was cured  
**Sleep, Clarke. I'll be back spoon to you (It turns out the creator of Trigedasleng has Serious Views about the term 'little spoon')  
***Forever, Clarke.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this wasn't too saccharine. I just wanted some canon-correcting fluff. Let me know if you liked it/think it's the worst thing since JRoth.


End file.
